Friday, April 28, 2006

Never heard of this one before: Apple Keyboard Update 1.0 for Intel Macs. It'll improve the reliabilty of you keyboard and mouse. Handy for those of you Intel Mac users with unreliable keyboards and mouses.

Monday, April 24, 2006

The 17-incher is here!

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro includes a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo processor that delivers dual-core performance in a breakthrough power-efficient design, making it ideal for use in MacBook Pro’s thin and lightweight design. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro is up to five times faster than the 17-inch PowerBook G4, running industry standard benchmarks* and offers an all new system architecture including a 667 MHz front-side bus that is four times as fast as the PowerBook G4 and 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable to 2GB that is twice as fast as the PowerBook G4.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

ROKR? KROKR (SHITE) more like. A while back I told you that I'd upgraded my mobile phone to a Motorola ROKR (with iTunes). Well I've finally come 'round to writing down what I think of it and I have to agree with every other review I've read - This phone is the worst phone I've ever used.Why? Right where do I start?Might as well start with the thing that drew me to making such a stupid choice, iTunes. You'd have thought that with the inclusion of Apple in Motorola's development, this would be the one thing that did work properly. You'd be mistaken. Somewhere along the line, someone decided not to put enough RAM inside. The functionality of using the iTunes menu is all wrong. It can't keep up with you button pushes (something that happens on every function of the ROKR). Using the mini joystick instead of the wheel take a bit of getting used to, but you end up clicking it twice because it seems that the first click doesn't register...but it has. It's just a few seconds too late. The one thing that's good (yes that was 'one') is that you don't have to scroll though your whole playlist to get to, say Foo Fighters. You can go straight to the 'F's buy tapping three times on the phones' 3 button (like you do to text). The seconds counter that shows when you play a track can't keep up either. Another thing that 'pumped my nag' was that I had to buy an adaptor to plug in my Sony headphones...and once I had, the sound quality wasn't as good as on my 3rd gen iPod. The headphones that come with the ROKR do have a mic (so you can pause iTunes and take a call without unplugging your headphones), but they feel, look and sound cheap. Syncing isn't any easier. The sync cable doesn't want to stay attached to the phone. The 100 song limit isn't much of a problem for me as I only use it for a few hours a day and I sync my iPod daily.During normal use, the ROKR fails in many other ways. As I've mentioned before, the phone is too slow. Even when you know the combination of button pushes to get to, say 'call the last number dialed'. Unlike a Nokia, it's impossible. The 'collect call' and 'end call' buttons are too small, you end up turning on the speakerphone when you attempt to answer a call. I've lost count of the number of times I've sent an unfinished text message. This is due to the 'send' button being placed where the 'delete' button should be. The camera takes abysmal shots because it's a low res VGA. Even doing something as changing your ringtone takes forever. I'm the sort of person that picks techy things up almost instantly, but you have to dig so far down the menus to find anything, you lose your way every time.The phone crashes. It once crashed whilst I was driving. The damn thing wouldn't stop ringing until I pulled out the battery. iTunes crashes quite often too.So my words of advice are (deep breath, shouted out) DON"T BUY IT.No wonder Steve Jobs overshadowed it with a 'real' Apple product when it was launched.Now I've got my nano (in 'nu metal' black), I don't use it as a mpeg player.Unlucky, I'm lumbered with using it as my mobile for the next twelve months. Unless it breaks. OOPS! Just dropped it over the side of a motorway bridge.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

iTunes To Sell You Your Home Videos For $1.99 Each (apparently). Jobs said at a media event, "As soon as you record that precious footage of your daughter's first steps, you'll be able to buy it right back from iTunes and download it directly to your computer and video iPod." So says The Onion - America's Finest News Source.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Live in London: Richard Ashcroft.Old big head is playing at the Apple Store on the 18th. That means a live EP on the Music Store a few weeks after. Hey, he's a good singer. But, ooh, doesn't he come out with a lot of shit?

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Apple release Boot Camp Public Beta. As long as you've got a Windows XP install disc, you can run Windows on your Intel Mac. Now why would you want to do that? You'll have to create a second partition on your hard drive to do it too.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Hot off the newswire: MacNN Report Intel-based iBook due in June?: "A new report from The Commercial Times appears to substantiate rumors of a 13.3-inch Intel-based iBook, which will reportedly ship in June 2006. As the fourth of five product lines to be transitioned to the Intel architecture, it will move Apple one step closer to completing the transition, which it said would happen by the end of 2006. AFX News Limited reports that Taiwan's Asustek Computer has secured a contract from Apple to produce the new Intel-based iBook. The contracted production run is for an estimated 1.2 million units initially. The Commercial Times said that the new consumer laptops will be powered by Intel's microprocessors and will be equipped with 13.3-inch liquid crystal display panels, confirming circulating rumors. 'Apple Computer will start selling the notebook PCs from June, while contract suppliers of panels to start deliveries from April. The US firm will source the panels for the laptops from AU Optronics Corp and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp as well as South Korea's LG Philips LCD.' The report said that AU Optronics is expected to supply Apple with about 40,000-50,000 LCD panels a month."

Apple releases Mac OS X 10.4.6. This one's for Intel, PowerPC and severs and fixes lots of stuff in iWork and Office, syncing and spotlight, including other things that I won't bore you with. Fire up Software Update now.